Will the Chicago Tribune really become just the Trib?

At right is one of the redesign proposals for the Chicago Tribune, according to this story on the Editor & Publisher web site. The Trib, as we've always called the Tribune, will be redesigned officially during September (no date has been announced). Even more dramatic, I hear, are planned content changes prompted by new owner Sam Zell's management team, which is dominated by television folks. 

Look in archives at Romenesko, Editor & Publisher, and newsdesigner.com for other comments and insights into the redesign. I expect the designers at newsdesigner.com to offer solid professional comment after the final design is unveiled. Currently, newsdesigner.com demonstrates the redesign of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, another Tribune newspaper, and a lot of comment on the company's redesign of the Orlando Sentinel.

What closing Washington bureaus means

Jonathan E. Kaplan, a former Washington reporter for Maine newspapers; now another unemployed, laid-off journalist, explains in today's Washington Post how today's leaner press is also a meaner press, as in less important since it's not doing its reporting job. 

It's interesting if you think about the reason for the press and believe along with the likes of Thomas Jefferson and others who gave our country a free press that the media has a responsibility for an educated populace, and plays a big role in the success of democracy. Kaplan explains exactly what Maine lost with the closing of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram's Washington bureau. It's also what we will lose when the Journal Sentinel follows through with its plans to eliminate its Washington bureau.